What kind of tools do landscape architects need to inform their designs with the abundance of knowledge available to us in Open Access data - in the era of 'Big Data'? Although the majority of landscape architects already integrate GIS data in their work, it is often only for analysis purposes and also only with data already integrated in their own country's GIS system. Without further processing, the graphic output formats often cannot reach a state that can be readily integrated into the design process. Students often have a negative stance towards GIS and the software programs associated with it especially within teaching. For the past three years, we at the Chair for Landscape Architecture of Professor Girot (ETH Zurich) have been researching at the potential for students to gain an understanding of the validity of site-specific data by creating coded programs that interactively integrate this information as parameters in the next step of the design process. The key to the entire processing chain is the use of an explorative approach to understanding data as the basis for making decisions.